We were on the coastal plain as the sun rose, the Mediterranean an enticing silver platter blocked by our enemies. When we galloped, our pursuers, who’d been conserving their own steeds, did too. I’d been looking at them through the glass and recognized some of the horses they’d recaptured. They had new ones as well. Silano must have pushed them brutally. Our rest at the Crusader castle had cost us dearly.
Our only hope was surprise. “Astiza! When we near the camp, hold your white scarf aloft like a truce flag! We have to confuse them!” She nodded, leaning intently over the neck of her sprinting horse.
Behind us, we heard shots. I looked back. Our pursuers were well out of range, but trying to alert the French sentries that we were to be arrested. I was betting on confusion, helped by the fact that we had a woman.
The last mile passed in a dead run, our horses’ foam-flecked, flanks heaving, our heads down as shots continued to pop behind us. The sentries were out, muskets raised, bayonets fixed, but uncertain.
“Now, now! Wave it now!”
Astiza did so, holding up one arm with the scarf trailing behind 2 4 2
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and straightening enough to give a look at her female torso, the wind flattening her gown against her breasts. The guards lowered their guns.
We thundered past. “Bandits and guerrillas!” I shouted. Najac’s bunch looked like ruffians. Now the pickets were tentatively aiming at our pursuers.
“Don’t slow!” I shouted to the others. We flashed by the hospital tents and jumped the tongues of wagons. There, was that Monge and the chemist, Berthollet? And was Bonaparte running out of his tent?
We crashed through a campfire circle, men scattering and embers flying, and everywhere soldiers were standing from their morning breakfast and exclaiming and pointing. Their muskets were stacked in neat little pyramids, bayonets gleaming. Down the avenue-like corridor between a regiment’s tents we pounded, dust swirling. Behind I could hear cries and argument as Silano’s party reined up at the lines, pointing furiously.
We just might make it.
A sergeant aimed a pistol, but I swerved and the man was butted aside by the shoulder of my horse, the gun going off harmlessly. A quick-witted Mohammad snatched a tricolor and carried it, as if we were leading a charge on Acre all by ourselves. But no, now a hedge of infantry was forming between us and the city walls, still a mile distant, so we wove along the lines, leaping a dike of sand. Shots began to be fired. They buzzed past like insistent hornets.
Up on Acre’s walls, horns were blowing. What would Smith think, when I’d deserted him without a word?
There, a kitchen unit, the men weaponless and preoccupied with cooking. I turned my horse and thundered through it, scattering them.
Their numbers gave us cover from other fire. Then across a trench, galloping alongside the old aqueduct toward the city . . .
Then I was flying.
For a moment I didn’t understand what had happened, and thought perhaps my horse had been shot or had suddenly burst its heart. I hit soft dirt and skidded, half blinded with dust. But as I rolled I realized Mohammad and Astiza had been thrown too, their horses screaming t h e
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as the equine legs snapped, and I saw the rope that had been hastily staked to trip us. It snapped through the air, a cook hooting in triumph. Down, with our goal in view!
I got up, hands scraped raw, and ran back to the other two. More shots, balls humming past.
“The aqueduct, effendi! We can use it for cover!” I nodded, pulling Astiza ruthlessly to keep up. She was wincing, her ankle twisted, but determined.
There was a stack of scaling ladders assembled for the next assault, and Mohammad and I seized one and threw it up against the old Roman engineering work. I pushed Astiza up from behind, rolling her over the top so we could collapse in the channel where water had run. It was a scrap of protection. Bullets pinged off the stone. “Stay low and follow this until we’re under the British guns,” I said. “Astiza, you go first with the scarf to signal them.” The plucky woman had held onto the thing even when her horse went down.
She shoved it at me. “No, it’s you they’ll recognize. Run and get help. I’ll follow as fast as I can.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Mohammad promised.
I looked over the edge of the aqueduct. The entire French camp was boiling. Silano had talked his way in and was pointing. Najac appeared to be loading my rifle.
No time to tarry.
I ran, the channel less than three feet deep, shots whining and pinging. Astiza and Mohammad followed at a pained crouch. Thank Thoth a musket can barely hit the side of a barn! Ahead, more French soldiers in advance trenches were turning to the commotion and raising their own guns.
Then an English cannon boomed from Acre, throwing up a gout of earth, and the French instinctively ducked back into their own trenches. Then another gun, and another. No doubt the defenders had no idea yet who they were shooting to benefit, but had decided that any French enemy must be their friend.
Then there was another bark, a scream, and a ball struck the pillars of the aqueduct. French cannon! The entire structure quaked.
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“Hurry,” I yelled back at other two. I ran at a duck, waving the scarf like a madman and hoping for a miracle.
